


More to Life

by Blue M Hart (ThePreciousHeart)



Category: Wayne's World (1992)
Genre: Airports, Awkward Dates, First Dates, Friendship, Garth is a precious bean and Wayne is a supportive friend, Gen, Hanging Out, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Late Night Conversations, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Rejection, Some Humor, That's how I see it, Title Subject to Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePreciousHeart/pseuds/Blue%20M%20Hart
Summary: Sometimes dream women aren't all they're cracked up to be. Garth talks it out with Wayne after a bad first date.
Relationships: Garth Algar & Wayne Campbell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	More to Life

**Author's Note:**

> I just saw this movie for this first time a few days ago and as soon as it was over, this fic started writing itself in my head, and now I'm convinced I would follow my muse off a bridge if it went there. Please enjoy.

The glowing lights of the runway at Aurora Municipal Airport never looked better as when viewed from head-on, just outside the fence supposedly built to keep away the bored, aimless teenage population. It wasn’t doing a good job, Wayne reflected. Not that he fit the description, exactly, but at night the airport had always held a sort of allure, and over time, a certain comfort as well. Given the choice, he always preferred to spend the weekend with friends, swinging by Stan Mikita’s Donuts to catch up on the latest chatter before hitting up the Gasworks for some rousing _rawk and rawl_. But if it was peace and quiet Wayne was looking for, some kind of place where he could lie on the hood of his car and smoke a joint and dream out loud, nothing was better than the spot he’d discovered as a teenager, when he’d got his driver’s license for the first time and exploring the world was only a matter of turning a key. It brought back memories, and Wayne couldn’t help but love it.

Tonight, there were no cars to sit on and no joints to enjoy, but Wayne was so amped up that he hardly cared. Only an hour prior, Garth had dropped him off in his Mirthmobile, under strict orders to come back around 10:00 so they could watch the last flight come in together. The only reason Garth wasn’t at the airport now was that, for the first time that Wayne could remember, he finally had plans on a Saturday night that didn’t involve hanging with the crew or burying himself in his computer. He was on a _date._ Just the thought of it made Wayne grin. After months of hearing Garth stumble over his words when trying to describe the hot waitress at Mikita's and how she made him feel, his chance had finally come when she took the initiative of asking him out. Wayne couldn’t remember seeing Garth so over the moon, not even the time that he’d won a pair of drumsticks from a contest over the radio, signed by one of Spinal Tap’s long progression of various drummers- Wayne could never remember what number they were up to now. _Seems to change every day._

Of course, they’d spent a good couple hours getting ready– assembling the perfect outfit (Wayne had been pleasantly surprised to find that all it took for Garth to clean up nicely was to button his flannel shirt and trade his old pair of jeans for one without holes), practicing the proper way of holding the door open and complimenting a date on her appearance, and assuring Garth a couple dozen times that really, he would be _fine,_ it was just a date, not a fricking funeral, and his best buddy Wayne would never steer him wrong. By the time they’d finally made it out to the airport to drop Wayne off, Garth had been bursting with anticipation. Wayne had watched him go with the same sense of overwhelming pride that he imagined his father would have shown on the night of his senior prom, if Wayne hadn’t blown that off to make fun of everyone who'd attended on his cable show instead. _They grow up so darn fast…_ When he’d first met Garth, he would have never imagined the shy, weird kid who sat in the back of the class with his Walkman and panicked when the teacher called on him would someday work up the nerve to go out with the woman he’d been dreaming about since the day she started working at Mikita’s.

A car horn scattered Wayne’s thoughts, followed by the flash of bright headlights. He hopped to his feet as the car rolled to a stop, frowning when he recognized the flames painted on the side. Garth was back already? That was weird. He was… Wayne checked his watch. Just shy of 10:00. About fifty minutes shy, in fact. It didn’t feel like it had been that long since he’d been dropped off. _Looks like someone was too excited to drive slowly._

“Hey, Garth!” Wayne called, walking over as his friend cut the car’s engine and slid from the driver’s seat. “How’d your date with Dream Woman go?”

“I had a lot of fun,” Garth replied faintly. He wasted no time in scrambling up onto the hood of the Mirthmobile, before adding, “Not.”

The single word confounded Wayne. He joined Garth on the Mirthmobile’s hood, noting that he’d undone his flannel’s buttons to reveal the T-shirt he’d bought at the Alice Cooper show a few months back.

“What do you mean? Did you show up on time?”

Garth nodded hastily, putting to rest Wayne’s inkling of concern that he’d made Garth late by insisting on a detour. He pondered what could have happened, deciding to walk Garth through it since Garth didn’t seem eager to say anything more. _First, set the scene._ “So, you went to her place…”

“I– I didn’t get to hold the door,” Garth explained. “She lives in an apartment, and I had to, um, call her down.”

“Okay, not bad.” Holding the door was just a formality, to prove you were a gentleman. There were a million other things Garth could have done to prove that, although Wayne suddenly regretted not teaching him any of them. “Did you compliment her outfit?” Chicks usually loved that _._

“Um…” Garth screwed up his face as he tried to remember. Then he gave another wild nod. “Yeah, I did! I said she looked… great?” He searched Wayne’s face uncertainly for approval, while Wayne tried not to shrug. He’d seen Garth’s dream woman plenty of times, and _great_ wasn’t exactly what he would use to describe her. More like _bombshell_ or _smokin’._ But it was a first date, after all. Garth had the right idea not to be too forward.

_So what went wrong?_ Had she not liked Garth’s choice of destination? _They better not have gone to Little Big Boy’s. That crap goes straight through you._

“Alright, that’s fine. Where’d you take her?” Wayne moved his eyebrows up and down as he threw out names, trying to get Garth to laugh, but Garth just stared blankly. “The Gasworks? Movieland?”

Garth shook his head, looking away from Wayne and down at his hands. “I thought she might be hungry, so I took her to Mikita’s.”

“Oh!” Wayne didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but… “Uh. You know she works at Mikita’s, right?”

“That’s what _she_ said!” Garth exclaimed, which almost sounded like a punchline, but there was no setup. “I just thought… well… you and I go there all the time.”

“Stick with the familiar, okay,” Wayne mused. “I get it, I get it.” He was a little disappointed that Garth hadn’t taken any of his suggestions on where to go, if only to save him from embarrassment, but… he _did_ get it. It was a big night for Garth, and he’d first met his dream woman at Mikita’s– he was bound to consider it a special place. Hopefully she’d seen it the same way.

“So, did you go?”

“No,” Garth murmured. “We ended up at Little Big Boy’s.”

At that, Wayne couldn’t hold back the dismay. “Oh. Oh, Garth.”

Garth stared cluelessly back. “What? I _like_ Little Big Boy’s. I like their… milkshakes…”

“Sh’ _yeah_ , because that’s all you ever order,” Wayne scoffed. “You don’t take a girl there on a date. Their stuff’s inedible.”

“You should have told me, Wayne! I thought you were supposed to _help_ me.” The note of desperation in Garth’s voice gave Wayne pause. Garth had never spoken to him like that before. Clearly something had gone horribly wrong with the date, and Garth possibly felt that Wayne was to blame for it.

“Okay, you’re right,” he relented. “I should have told you, I'm sorry.” He paused, searching for the next step, trying to fit together the pieces that had led Garth to this moment. “Well, what happened? Did she like it?”

“I dunno.” Garth pushed his glasses up on his nose and shrugged like he didn’t care, but Wayne could see from his furrowed brow that he did care quite a bit. “We got a table near the window, and there was music playing, and she ordered a burger, and I ordered the deluxe milkshake with the M&Ms on the side.” He blew out a slow breath, his eyes glazing as he appeared to picture all that had happened just an hour ago. “It was kind of weird, sitting there and not saying anything.”

“Hang on a minute.” Now Wayne’s mind was thoroughly boggled. “You weren’t talking to her?”

“She was so pretty, Wayne, she made me nervous!” Garth defensively shot back. _“You_ try talking to a girl when she's wearing a white dress, and… and those little shoes with the straps…”

Though Wayne was beginning to get the feeling that he and Garth had completely different ideas about what made a woman attractive, he managed a sympathetic, “Touché.” Still, he felt his heart sink. This was far from the first time that Garth’s shyness had gotten the better of him, but he’d hoped he’d be able to overcome it for at least one night with his dream woman.

“But— she talked to you, right?”

“Well.” Garth met Wayne’s eyes, apparently thinking hard. “Not really... I had to make my M&Ms battle for her.”

“Yeah?” Wayne breathed. “And?”

A mild grimace fell across Garth’s face. “I don’t think she liked it.”

That only confused Wayne further. How could she have _not_ liked the M&M battle? It was an epic ceremonial that Wayne always enjoyed watching– the process of squeezing two M&Ms together until one of them cracked, and its carcass was deposited into Garth’s milkshake. Sometimes Garth let Wayne eat the ultimate winner, but most of the time he ate it himself. Wayne hadn’t given much thought to whether Garth’s dream woman would enjoy it, but at the very least, he’d have expected her to be _entertained._

Then a horrible thought occurred to him. “Garth, you didn’t eat the winner yourself, did you?”

“Um…” An uncomfortable look appeared on Garth’s face. “Actually… she stopped me way before that.”

Suddenly Garth looked like he didn’t want to be telling this story anymore, which kind of made Wayne feel like he shouldn’t keep asking. He didn’t want to be seen as nosy. But he and Garth had never held anything back from each other, and he _had_ to know what exactly had made the date so bad that Garth was here, over half an hour before the 10:00 plane’s scheduled return.

Just as Wayne drew breath to ask what Garth’s date had said, Garth beat him to the punch. His words escaped haltingly. “She stopped me and said she knew I liked her. She said that’s why she asked me out.”

Once again, befuddlement filled Wayne. “Well, that’s good!”

“No, Wayne. Not good!” Garth’s hair flew in his face as he shook his head, his voice rising. “She said— she said— she said—”

“Garth!” Wayne reached out to gently push Garth’s waving hands down. “Chill out, man. Take your pills. What’d she say?”

“She—” Again Garth’s words failed him, but slowly, the sordid tale struggled out. “She said… she only asked me out because her friends dared her to. She said they thought it was funny that I liked her. She wasn’t supposed to tell me, she said, but once we met she realized I was more pathetic than she thought, and… she said she kinda felt sorry for me. But not sorry enough to stay.”

For the first time in possibly his entire life, Wayne was at a loss for words. He tried to reach out and grab a handful of them, but they seemed to have fled in every direction. Inside himself was a great wall of nothing. Then, finally, he blurted weakly, “No way.”

“Way,” Garth said, so quietly and unhappily that Wayne almost didn’t hear him. He suddenly became very absorbed in scuffing his heel against the edge of the Mirthmobile, as if squashing an invisible bug. 

Again Wayne reached for the right words, and again, they didn’t come. He realized he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, trying to work out what to say, and quickly pushed his jaw shut. All he could think of was the slim, remaining chance… “Did you get to take her home?”

“No…” Garth replied in the smallest voice. “I was denied.”

“Oh.” Wayne hoped against all logic that Garth would say something else, but his attention now seemed fully consumed with whatever he was trying to scrape off the Mirthmobile. He gazed into the distance at the wavery lights lining the runway, trying to summon up some way to feel about what Garth had just told him. However, the story had completely knocked him flat. He’d never heard of anything like that happening before– well, not to guys like him and Garth.

What kind of _dream woman_ would do something like that?

Another minute of awkward silence stretched out, which to Wayne felt like a lifetime, before Garth finally broke it with, “Why don’t girls like me?”

Taken aback, all Wayne could say was “Huh?” Guiltily he realized he’d never really thought about it. While he was off lusting after some mega-babe, Garth was sticking toothpicks in donuts and speaking in funny voices, and it had always seemed totally normal. Somehow, Wayne had never pictured Garth with a girlfriend, and now he felt bad for not picturing it.

“C’mon, Garth, that’s not true.” He imbued his voice with optimism. “There’s bound to be—”

“They don’t like me the same way they like you,” Garth broke in. “Cassandra liked you immediately! And before her was Stacy, Vanessa, Jan, Nancy…” With each new name, he counted off another finger. “Wayne, it took me six months to get a date with this girl, and all it took for you was one conversation. And she doesn’t even like me.” He stared at Wayne with a mixture of dread and despair, his voice shaking. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”

Staring back at Garth, heat rose over Wayne as his emotions finally reached a conclusion. That woman was the one who had something wrong with her. She and her friends hadn't bothered to take the time to puzzle out Garth’s behavior, such as when he got overexcited and started bouncing around, or when he meant to say one thing but the words came out jumbled, or when he refused to speak at all. Sure, it hadn’t been easy at first for Wayne to get to know Garth. Even now, there were plenty of things about him that Wayne didn’t quite understand. But over time, he’d grown to appreciate all of Garth’s little quirks and idiosyncrasies, because without them, he wasn’t _Garth_. A real dream woman would immediately see how great a guy he was, instead of honing in on his odd traits. She would never ask him on a date just to humiliate him. At the very least, she and her friends could have accepted Garth. _Instead… they came, they saw, they mocked._

Anger wasn’t a good look, so reluctantly Wayne pushed it aside. Shaking himself back to awareness, he found that Garth had pulled his hair in front of his face, hiding beneath his hands. It was something Wayne hadn’t seen him do since high school, when he and Wayne were just starting to get to know each other. Garth’s bangs had been longer then, and at the first sign of discomfort or embarrassment he would cover his face with them, as if trying to turn invisible. Hanging with Wayne was all that had encouraged him to come out of his shell.

Wayne watched with alarm as Garth made a weird sound, something like a gasp, only… sadder. It made him feel kind of sick, except it was in his heart and not his stomach. Carefully he prodded Garth’s shoulder.

“Hey, hey. Garth, Garth, Garth.” Wayne chanced to give him a tiny shake. “I’m gonna tell you a secret, okay?”

Slowly Garth’s hands slid from his face and folded against his chest. He peeked out from his curtain of hair. Behind his glasses frames, his eyes were wet, and his chin wobbled as he spoke. “A secret?”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, nodding sagely. “But, I can’t tell you unless you promise not to tell anyone else, okay?”

Garth bit his lip and nodded back. “I can keep a secret.”

“Okay, alright.” Wayne clasped his hands in a prayer position and slowly breathed out. “The secret is this… _There’s more to life than babes.”_

He wasn’t sure how comforting Garth would find his words, but God bless him, he looked genuinely intrigued. “There is?”

“Sh’yeah! There are _tons_ of things more important than babes.” Wayne managed a smile as he launched into an impromptu top ten list. “Number ten, the amazing donuts they make at Mikita’s. Number nine, all those cool, crazy shows they have at the Gasworks. Number eight, those movie theaters that don't charge extra for butter on your popcorn, and don't mind if you stay to see a second showing. Number seven, the world’s greatest rock band, Aerosmith. Number six, our TV program…” It suddenly occurred to Wayne that _Wayne's World_ should probably be ranked much higher than that, so he skipped ahead. “And the number one thing that’s more important than babes is, of course, hanging out at Aurora Municipal on a Saturday night with your best friend in the entire world.”

He thought he’d gotten through to Garth, but Garth only mumbled indistinctly and looked away. It looked like he was going to hide again, so Wayne grabbed his shoulder. “Come on! A cool guy who doesn’t need to worry about what _anybody_ thinks of him says what?”

“What?” Garth said, then: “Oh!” In an instant, his face lit up, as if he’d just inherited the world.

“Yeah.” Wayne rubbed Garth’s shoulder, grinning fondly until Garth’s unsteady expression mirrored his. Then he gradually eased himself off the Mirthmobile and onto the gravel below. Garth followed him, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

“Come on,” Wayne announced, trying the handle of the passenger door. “Let’s go to the Gasworks. Cassandra told me about the band that’s playing tonight, they’re some Rush tribute band called Slow. All their songs are exceptionally long.”

Garth nodded as he fumbled for his keys. “Wayne?”

“Yes, Garth?”

Garth unlocked the car doors with a _click._ “What if we can’t go back to Mikita’s anymore?”

It didn’t take long for Wayne to understand why Garth had asked that. The thought struck him as grim. Going to Stan Mikita’s Donuts had become a post-show ritual on Friday nights, to the point where Wayne imagined the two intertwined. Mikita’s had always felt like a second home, a place where they knew they’d always be wanted.

But if that snooty woman who’d broken Garth’s heart worked there, then they couldn’t be as wanted as they’d thought. And if Garth didn’t want to see her, then Wayne didn’t want anything to do with it either.

“We'll find a better hangout spot,” he declared as he opened the passenger door. “Some place that serves double the donuts for half the price. As long as it’s not Little Big Boy’s.”

That was all he got out before the air whipped into a frenzy, the sky shattered overhead, and a mutual scream tumbled forth from his and Garth’s open mouths. The 10:00 plane boldly charted its course, growing larger and larger until it had settled firmly on the ground somewhere behind them.

"Wayne?" Garth said again once the commotion had died down.

"Yes, Garth?"

Garth was staring at the ground, but his words, quiet as they were, were direct. "Thank you."

Wayne shrugged and hopped into the car. "Don't mention it. Now..." He rubbed his hands together excitedly, meaningfully eyeing the CD player. "What are we in the mood to hear?"

**Author's Note:**

> According to my research, the Aurora Municipal Airport is the only airport in Aurora, but it doesn't look much like the one in the movie. Still, I figured it was the best to use for this fic.
> 
> Yes, I used one line to suggest a crossover between Wayne’s World and This is Spinal Tap, because dammit I feel like they belong in the same universe (and it felt weird referencing a real drummer). 
> 
> The bit about the M&M battle was inspired by [this post.](https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tpa/409930561.html) A friend of mine also does something similar. It seemed like a perfect thing for Garth to do that his date would think was strange.
> 
> Little Big Boy's is a totally fictitious establishment and any resemblance to a real restaurant is entirely coincidental. Movieland is a real establishment that is not located in Aurora.


End file.
